Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 484: I'll Take This Building
When Pei Qian arrived at the main entrance of the City Dawn residential complex, Manager Yang from the sales office was already waiting outside.
"President Pei, welcome, welcome!"
"I never imagined our development would catch your eye. I'm truly honored."
Faced with Manager Yang's enthusiasm, Pei Qian felt too embarrassed to tell him the truth.
He was here entirely because of this apartment's bizarre floor plan.
He had discovered the unit by chance. The moment he saw the floor plan, he immediately fell in love with it and had Assistant Xin contact the sales office to arrange a viewing today.
Given Tengda Group's current reputation in Jingzhou, the sales office naturally treated the matter with great importance and specifically assigned Manager Yang to receive him.
"President Pei, would you like some tea first, or shall we go look at the property right away?" Manager Yang asked.
The moment Pei Qian got out of the car, his eyes had never left that unusual cylindrical building.
"Let's see the property first."
Manager Yang nodded.
"Of course. This way, please."
As they walked into the complex, Pei Qian glanced at the surrounding apartment buildings.
There were many residential buildings throughout City Dawn, and almost all of them had normal, rectangular layouts just like any other standard housing development.
Only this one building—this proud, solitary cylindrical tower—stood out as something completely different.
It occupied the very center of the complex, and the words "City Dawn" were displayed on its rooftop, making its prestigious status within the development obvious.
If someone unfamiliar with the project visited for the first time, they might genuinely be impressed.
But Pei Qian had already done extensive research.
This building featured one apartment per floor, served by a private elevator. Each unit measured 248 square meters, with five bedrooms, three living areas, and four bathrooms. The building had twelve floors in total, and its floor-to-floor height exceeded that of ordinary residential towers, reaching thirty-six meters.
Viewed from the floor plan, it looked remarkably similar to the circular test-pattern image that television stations used to display when they weren't broadcasting.
Previously, while browsing online forums, Pei Qian had discovered countless bizarre apartment layouts—track-shaped layouts, sewer-shaped layouts, toilet-shaped layouts, battleship-shaped layouts, and many others.
They had truly broadened his horizons and left him amazed.
The more he looked, the more tempted he became to buy one.
Unfortunately, those forum posts hadn't listed the names of the residential developments where those units were located, making them impossible to track down.
Moreover, they probably weren't in Jingzhou.
As a second-tier city, Jingzhou's housing prices weren't especially high compared to the rest of the country. Developers generally weren't desperate for land, so the chances of producing bizarre floor plans were relatively low.
Typically, such strange designs appeared only in ultra-expensive first-tier cities, where every square meter was precious and developers squeezed space utilization to its absolute limit.
Still, persistence paid off.
After searching repeatedly, he had finally discovered this 360-degree daylight-exposure "Never-Setting-Sun" layout near the company.
This type of floor plan wasn't unique. Similar designs could be found in many other cities, including the capital and Shanghai. Their sizes ranged from just over 200 square meters to more than 400 square meters—the circles simply kept getting larger.
As for why they existed...
Who knew?
Perhaps some real-estate developer's boss believed wealthy buyers would love this kind of design.
The defining characteristic of these layouts was that they looked beautiful but were utterly impractical.
From a scenic perspective, they were indeed impressive. But imagine living in a home where the living room, bedrooms, study, and other spaces were all irregularly shaped.
What a headache that would be.
Such a layout meant poor space efficiency. On paper, the apartment might be over 240 square meters, but in actual use it might not feel much larger than a conventional 200-square-meter unit.
Besides, no matter how spectacular the view was, most people would get tired of it after three days.
For the vast majority of homebuyers, comfort and practicality mattered far more than scenery.
Originally, these units had been priced at around 15,000 yuan per square meter. Because sales were poor, the price had been reduced to 12,000 yuan per square meter.
Even so, each apartment still cost around 3 million yuan.
For an ordinary wealthy buyer, wouldn't it make more sense to spend that money on a proper luxury flat?
In short, the situation could be summarized as the rich didn't want it, and artsy idealists couldn't afford it.
Almost every other building in the complex had already sold most of its units.
Only this building still had active listings online.
If the developer lowered the price too much, they wouldn't be happy.
If they lowered it too little, buyers wouldn't be interested.
As a result, the whole situation ended up stuck in an awkward stalemate.
Yet it fit Pei Qian's needs perfectly.
Having a unique set of requirements and not having to compete with anyone else for them—that was a kind of happiness in itself.
Manager Yang led Pei Qian to a model unit on one of the upper floors and immediately launched into a dazzling sales pitch, praising the incredible views and the grand, luxurious design of the layout.
Naturally, Pei Qian didn't absorb a single word.
He knew perfectly well that ninety percent of it was sales talk.
Of course, there was no point arguing with Manager Yang about it. After all, the person responsible for negotiating the price wasn't him—it was Assistant Xin.
Pei Qian wandered around the apartment for a bit and found it quite satisfactory.
After all, it was a 240-plus-square-meter residence with windows on all sides and a fully finished interior. No matter how one looked at it, it was still far better than the ordinary rental apartment he was currently living in.
The reason these units sold poorly wasn't because they were low quality or had any fatal flaws.
The main issue was the floor plan, which made their value-for-money ratio far too low.
At the same price point, buyers simply had too many better options.
The harder Manager Yang worked to promote the apartment, the more convinced Pei Qian became that it genuinely wasn't selling well.
And if that was the case, then he absolutely had to buy it!
Through a strange twist of fate, Manager Yang's goals and Pei Qian's goals had somehow aligned.
Half an hour later, Manager Yang's mouth was dry from talking. He paused to drink some water while secretly observing President Pei's expression.
He couldn't read anything from it.
On one hand, President Pei seemed to have completely seen through every sales tactic and thoroughly understood the building's situation.
On the other hand, he also seemed genuinely interested in the property.
These two contradictory impressions appeared simultaneously on President Pei's face, leaving Manager Yang utterly unable to figure out what he was thinking.
After pondering for a moment, Pei Qian asked, "Out of these twelve floors, how many units are currently occupied?"
Manager Yang's heart immediately skipped a beat.
Oh no!
President Pei had opened with such a sharp question!
The truth was that only three units in the entire building had been sold so far—just one-quarter of the building.
And to make matters worse, all three owners regretted their purchases and were trying to resell their apartments on the secondary market.
What exactly was President Pei getting at with this question?
Had he already seen through the building's predicament and was deliberately bringing it up as a way to signal that the property was unpopular, so he could negotiate a lower price?
Manager Yang struggled internally for a moment.
But he didn't dare lie. This wasn't the sort of thing that could be hidden.
"President Pei, please don't worry. We still have plenty of units available. As for which floor you'd like, you can take your time choosing..."
He decided to dodge the question indirectly.
Pei Qian frowned.
"I asked how many units have been sold."
Realizing he couldn't evade the issue, Manager Yang reluctantly answered truthfully.
"Three."
"President Pei, our building was always positioned as a high-end property. It's perfectly normal that ordinary people can't afford it. The three owners are all successful local businessmen from Jingzhou. Of course, compared to you, they're still far behind, but—"
Pei Qian raised a hand, cutting him off, "Please contact those three owners for me."
"I intend to purchase their units as well. I'd like them to move out as soon as possible. I can even cover their moving expenses."
Manager Yang: "?"
He froze.
"Uh, President Pei, we still have brand-new units available on the other floors. There's really no need for you to..."
Then he suddenly stopped.
"Wait... President Pei, are you saying..."
An expression of extreme shock appeared on Manager Yang's face.
He had correctly understood what President Pei meant.
He simply didn't dare believe it.
Pei Qian nodded.
"That's right."
"I'll take the entire building."
Manager Yang stood there dumbfounded, tears glistening in his eyes.
At that moment, President Pei seemed to radiate a holy light.
To Manager Yang, he looked like a savior descending from heaven.
. . .
That afternoon.
Pei Qian was leisurely drinking tea in his office when Assistant Xin returned.
Judging from the situation, after an entire afternoon of negotiations and discussions, all parties had already reached a preliminary agreement.
"President Pei, those three homeowners were already quite dissatisfied with the floor plan, so they all agreed immediately. With this money, they can simply buy new homes. They're delighted, if anything."
"You mentioned that you hoped they could move out as soon as possible, so we've arranged moving companies for all of them. We'll also reimburse their hotel expenses while they're looking for new properties."
"As for the price, the apartments are valued at 12,000 yuan per square meter. The building has twelve floors, each unit is 248 square meters, and since we're paying in full, we received a ten-percent discount and some additional rounding adjustments. The final price comes to 35 million yuan."
"If you're satisfied, we'll proceed at that price."
Pei Qian nodded.
He had always trusted Assistant Xin's negotiating abilities one hundred percent.
Paying 35 million yuan for an entire building wasn't really a bad deal. The floor plan might be terrible, but it certainly wasn't a rip-off.
Half of the money earned from the movie still remained.
Pei Qian hadn't spent all of it.
The reason was simple: first, he needed to see whether his idea would actually work and whether Sloth Apartments could successfully operate at a loss.
Only after confirming that would he spend the remaining funds.
Besides that, Pei Qian had another excellent money-burning strategy in mind:
Interior furnishings.
This building counted as a fixed asset. After applying the system's 10:1 fixed-asset conversion ratio, it only counted as 3.5 million yuan toward settlement calculations.
Pei Qian estimated that, by the end of the current cycle, all of his fixed assets combined would amount to at most 90 million yuan.
If they exceeded 100 million yuan, generating losses would become much less convenient.
However, money spent on the building's interior furnishings could be spent much more freely.
For example, expensive furniture, decorative pieces, appliances, and similar items did not affect settlement calculations.
Of course, Pei Qian couldn't go overboard.
For instance, furnishing the entire building with top-tier luxury-brand furniture would be far too conspicuous. If word got out, it might attract every wealthy person in Jingzhou, creating enormous risks.
Mingyun Private Kitchen had already provided a painful lesson in that regard.
Therefore, Pei Qian's goal was to spend as much money as possible on interior furnishings without attracting attention.
At the same time, he wanted to use those improvements as justification for raising the rent.
The objective was to achieve a perfect balance.
Put simply:
Too unimpressive for the rich. Too expensive for the poor.
Keeping Sloth Apartments trapped in that awkward middle ground—neither desirable nor affordable—would be the ideal outcome.
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Tn: I updated the story once a day, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 536: Still Going with the "Bare Walls" Style[1]
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[1] https://www.patreon.com/HannibalNotBarca/posts/losing-money-to-164800513?collection=1399284
[2] https://www.patreon.com/HannibalNotBarca/posts/losing-money-to-164800513?collection=1399284